An Englishman watches baseball for the first time
Published: Mon, 05/30/16
I have been a bit quiet this month, sorry about that but I was away in the USA and then Norfolk for over 10 days and there has been a lot of catching up to do. Not least with sleep as I deal with jet lag. Apart from the effects of international travel across six or seven time zones I had a great time in the USA. I had not been for about three years and it was great to see Miki and Therissa again, catch up with Allen who I know from Fightcamp and meet Peter and Andrea for the first time. We did three days good training and all well worth while.
On the Monday evening I was taken to my first base ball game. Only my second live American sporting event (I went to an ice hockey game in Texas in 2000). We got there in good time and had something to eat from one of the wide choice of fast food outlets in the stadium. There were lots of families and children, although most of them did not seem to stay all that long. The stadium itself is almost brand new and very smart.
The players, the local team, the St Paul’s Saints and the visiting team were called the Sioux Falls Canaries, all the way from South Dakota, came out quite early to warm up. There was some running around and callisthenics going on but most of the practice was simply throwing and catching the ball, and lots more throwing and catching the ball. Throwing quite long distances, very fast and catching with complete consistency. This impresses me because, as a child I could hardly catch a ball to save my life, I wasn’t welcome on a rounders team and as for cricket, I don’t think I have ever played in my life. When I was a little older my father explained the point of ‘keeping your eye on the ball’ and I can usually catch a ball (or similar object now) now if it is thrown accurately and not too fast.
So, even before the game had started I was fascinated by the skill being demonstrated by everyone on the pitch. So my first conclusion was that the fundamental skill in baseball is being able to throw and catch a ball. Being able to run a bit helps too, but not very far since the pitch really isn’t that big.
Some people are obviously particularly good at throwing the ball so they are called pitchers (I think we would call it bowling in the UK). Someone who is particularly good at catching is designated the catcher and they crouch down just behind the batter while wearing a very impressive suit of what can only be described as armour. Then someone with a bat tries to hit the ball as it gets thrown (sorry, pitched) from pitcher to catcher. Only the ball does not seem to get hit very often. Maybe this isn’t surprising since the ball apparently gets pitched at 85 to 90 mph. So play seems to go something like: Miss, miss, miss, hit, caught, miss, miss, miss, hit, run, stumped out and so on.
When I thought about base ball as a Englishman (which wasn’t very often, but I do like the books of John Grisham, a writer is pretty much obsessed with base ball.) I always thought in terms of batters swinging fast and hard and sending the ball so far away that they would have plenty of time to run around all four bases and have time to drink a beer before the ball was retrieved. I now know that that is not quite how the game works. Every player is so highly developed in the apparently mundane skills of throwing and catching a ball that even when the ball is hit it will almost always be caught and returned to the pitcher in the blink of an eye.
The real skill in any activity is very often not obvious until you look very hard. Ivar Hafskjold has always said that the true purpose of Stav is to learn to see the reality behind the obvious. I like to think I was applying that principle watching my first ball game.
That ability to see reality applies to everything of course. The skill in working with wood for example is in the measuring, marking and cutting, the knocking together is the easy bit. In preaching or any other public speaking the skill is in the preparation and structuring the material, then standing up in front of the congregation or audience is the easy and fun bit.
When training in Stav the key thing is learning to be genuinely centred, relaxed and aware. These three qualities are developed by practising the stances and from your centre you can be genuinely responsive and adaptable.
This coming weekend we will be exploring fundamental principles of martial arts training and their application in our workshop, ‘From the generic to the specific’ in Somerset on the 4th and 5th of June. More details and booking here http://www.stavcamp.org
regards
Graham